One thing that should not be discounted in the Ergodox vs. Maltron battle is the integrated trackball that you can get with the Maltron. This little feature has huge ergonomic benefits, in my view. You can use the trackball with your hand in a very comfortable position and the buttons are a very intuitive place for your fingers. In addition, the navigation keys on the numpad are within easy reach when you using the trackball, so navigating around documents is more convenient than with any other device.
Show Image
(http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_images/maltron_ergonomic_e_type_trackball_keyboard_large.jpg)
Ergonomically gorgeous.
The pack of hardware and software is making it. Therefore both keyboards are worth a try.
Despite the above statements on missing programmability on Maltrons its easy to solder the matrix of an older Maltron to a Teensy controller and achieve full programmability. Today you can even order a Maltron with Teensy inside, like I did after the ErgoDox project took me too long and I was never disappointed.
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Maltron offers such a good pack of hard- and software by providing:
- a tented and v-shaped hardware together with keys adjusted to the different finger length. (I do not miss seperation of left and right keyboard for adjustability.)
- a keyboard layout optimised for english language called Malt. (I have made some analysis on this here geekhack.org (http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=48292.msg1306819#msg1306819))
My personal cherry picking dream pack is similar:
- take the compact Maltron without navigation and number block in the middle because that supports a more neutral arms position while typing
- add the character layout of your choice together with layers for symbols, numbers and navigation and multiuse thumb keys (layer modifier if pressed together with some other key or normal key otherwise i.e Shift/Space)
This is not hypothetical but working! I will attach a picture of the programmable Maltron KW, a picture of my current layout and a link to the firmware sources I patched.
For me Maltron had won the overall hardware competition already two years ago against ErgoDox when deciding which to try (first).
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Link to the firmware sources: github (https://github.com/weberk/adnw/tree/maltron/src)
When it comes to the layout I favoure the solutions the AdNW (http://www.AdNW.de) keyboard layout optimiser (https://sites.google.com/site/ausderneowelt/Optimierer.tar.gz?attredirects=0) is delivering. That comes out of the box with english and german statistic files but was also used for russian optimisation. It finds Dvorak like layouts with few adjacent key strokes on the pinky/ring and middle/ring finger. Furthermore it offers high hand alternation rates, few same finger movements, an adaptable cost model for keys touch efforts which distributes the characters according to these drivers and the individual hardware.
Finally there are still some digraphs typed one handed and those should be (for me) more inward rolls than outward. These digraphs should not be typed over more than one row distance. Optimally most digraphs should be typed on the home row. The following diagram - created by the AdNW optimiser - shows the digraph movements on this layout. Thicker lines indicate frequent digraphs and inbound rolls are shown by lines curving upwards. This layout has twice as much inbound rolls, as outbound hand roll movements.
Digraphs typed one handed for english language on Z.O,Y-TECK:
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Digraphs typed one handed for german language on Z.O,Y-TECK:
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Just to compare whats going on one handed in QWERTY for english language:
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